Her hand slid down his body. She reached to embrace his manhood but found something else. He pulled away from the kiss and said, "I know who you are."
It was a kiss goodbye. Carson shot her.
BANG!
She grabbed the gun tightly as he fired a second round into her abdomen.
BANG!
She disarmed him, staggered a few steps deeper into the alley, teetered and collapsed into a pile of garbage.
He backed out of the alley as he yelled at her. "You think you can trick me? I figured it out. It had to be you! You gave my files to the D.A.! You stole them from my bank! I trusted you! How could you betray me like that, you Mata Hari!”
She coughed.
He yelled. "I don’t know what kind of deal you made, but you will never testify against me! I never lose. Their star witness is gone!"
She writhed in agony.
He wiped his nose and continued, "You never should have come north you stupid little hick bitch from the backwoods of nowhere! This is my city and I say who lives and dies in it. "
She gurgled and stopped breathing.
Carson signaled to a parked car. The headlights flashed on and it raced over to him. It screeched to a halt. Carson jumped into the get-away-car, abandoned the scene, and left her for dead.
When the coast-was-clear the dead platinum blonde sat up. "This was the second time he had me dumped in an alley."
She arose from the trash and said. "Luckily, I wore part of my bullet proof costume under the dress."
She felt the area where the bullets struck her and winced. "That’s really tender."
She was covered in filth and old food and did her best to clean off. She headed to the costume shop via the alleyways. "He figured some of it out. I, Jewel, could never have been a witness since she never existed. Carson doesn't know who I really am.”
“He thought he caught me, but he couldn’t see past the surface.”
She pulled off her wig and shook out her natural hair. She peeled off her mask and makeup as she walked through the night. "It looks like I’ll have to bury Jewel. Too bad she was killed before her time was up, just like the real Jean Harlow.”
Week after week the trial dragged on as Betty watched.
The proceedings made little or no sense to her. The judge appeared to be more interested in pageantry and process than punishing the crooks. It seemed like a waste of everyone’s time.
During the trial Carson's team controlled the framework of the dialogue. They changed narratives mid-argument to prevent unfavorable conclusions from being reached. It was hard to follow their points. They spontaneously changed the meaning of words or bent them to prolong senseless arguments. Good was bad. Up was down. Wrong was right. Much of it made no sense at all. They used their resources to create a truth that never existed. The trial had become an endurance test. It was a battle of attrition, not of right and wrong. Carson had the purchasing power to keep going, and going. His wealth granted him freedom to ride the wheels of justice for as along as he wanted.
Betty learned that those of wealth and power were afforded special privileges within the legal system. Any average perpetrator would have been thrown in jail long ago. The rich had heisted the law.
The defense finally summed up their case and client. "Carson isn't the portrait of a gangster the prosecution is trying to paint him as. He is a respected member of the business community. He's a model citizen of the Citadel, not a member of its underworld."
Betty knew him better. He was a monster.
What the men of Schadenfreude did was wrong. Most of it seemed illegal. They were guilty of usury, market manipulation, investor fraud, defrauding the government, ponzi schemes, money laundering, material omission and unbridled, salivating greed.
The veil of protection in the laws granted immunity to members of the corporation. None of its board members, the actual perpetrators, were held accountable. The company was asked to pay a fine for its activities. The amount may have sounded large to an average person, but to Schadenfreude it was just a week’s income. To the members it wasn't punishment it was just the cost of doing business.
They rented the courtroom for a legal performance. When the show was over they went home.
Betty was furious. She provided a mountain of evidence, and this was the best the Professor’s team could do. If after all her effort nothing had changed, what did it take to beat these guys?
They might have followed the law but it wasn't justice.
Betty stalked the Professor. Witness X confronted him on the campus outside the legal department as he was leaving for the night. She was furious and screaming at him. He tried to calm her. "Don’t worry we'll appeal."
He guided her into his office so her voice wouldn't draw unwanted attention.
"What's the use? Nothing is different!" She argued.
He countered, "Not true, it was a partial victory for us. In the strictest sense we won. We did a good thing. We got portions of some victims’ money back and Schadenfreude was going to be closed down.”
She said. "But Carson will just do it again. He is free! I wasted all that time for nothing."
He said. "I admit, I had hoped for something more, but expected a verdict like the one we were handed."
She fumed. "How can you be so calm? I’ve seen you go nuts over much smaller stuff than this! Carson remains unpunished! We lost!"
He said. "I don’t feel like we lost. In a way we won. We fought the good fight and got results. I feel good about it."
He thought some more and added. "I guess I feel vindicated that my new legal theorem was right."
She glared. “Vindicated? Even if everything you say is true, we didn't stop Carson! He and the other monsters are still on the loose! It didn’t matter how you played the game it mattered if you won or lost."
Her words shook him.
He continued. "Look, I know the law isn’t perfect. It’s an iterative process, but it’s the foundation of our country. The only choice we have is to work within our legal framework. To reshape it we need to go through the proper channels. We, the people, have to make the changes. We, the people, must perfect the process and trust that the legal structure is sound. Without it we'd have chaos."
Betty shouted. "Wake up! Step outside of your office and take a look around! It is chaos!"
He continued trying to comfort her. "That’s why we need good people in there to help shape it. I’m teaching a new generation of students. It starts with the youth. We train them to do the right thing, then as they grow…"
Betty pleaded. "I can’t wait for them to grow up. I need to stop Carson now!"
He scolded. "You can’t just take the law into your own hands. No man, or woman, has the right to be judge, jury, and executioner. We need to involve everyone and trust in the people to do what's best for all of us. We must trust in ourselves to do what's right. The system will prevail, in the long run. We must have faith in the law.”
Betty seethed. "The only thing I have faith in is me!"
She slammed the door as she left. The frosted window with his name and title shattered to the floor. Professor Leo Langley wouldn't allow himself to accept what Witness X clearly believed. If he did, everything he held as true would be gone. His life would be meaningless.
Later, a big black car rocketed through the streets of Citadel City. Betty was headed back to her country hideout at top speed. She thought, "They just took whatever they wanted and no one stopped them. Someone needed to start punishing them!"
“Apparently they can rape, and kill, and maim, and pillage, and plunder, and remain respectable. If no one knows what they really do, then their crimes will never go away. If they can play dirty and keep their deeds secret they will remain socially acceptable. Their crimes will always pay. I thought I could expose Carson, but it didn't work. I was tired of playing legal games.”